http://www.rtcc.org/2013/08/13/obamas-twitter-climate-change-rampage/

 

Barack Obama is using his second term to take a hard line on climate change.

 

He has delivered speeches in sweltering heat, waged war with sceptical Republicans over the future of the Environmental Protection Agency, and raised the hopes of campaigners that he might reject the Keystone XL Pipeline.

But last night, he cemented his commitment to fighting climate change in the only way that really matters: a no-holds-barred rampage on Twitter.

It's unclear whether the President personally took time out from leading the free world to fire off the messages.

Obama's account is run by staff at Organising For Action, an NGO which promotes Obama's policy, and has been used in election campaigns and during his time in office to highlight the Democrat priorities.

Obama himself is currently on holiday, while the private jet that he engaged to fly his dog to the location in Massachusetts has raised some eyebrows over his environmental principles.

But what's clear is that his 35 million followers were bombarded with a series of tweets reinforcing Obama's belief in climate science, which he said was as conclusive as it is on gravity, and his determination to tackle the subject during his second term as president.

At one stage, followers were asked to retweet him if they believed "Climate change is real, and it's time for us to act." At the time of writing, 5,732 have responded to the President's Twitter directive.

Retweet if you agree: Climate change is real, and it's time for us to act. #ScienceSaysSo

One of the tweets was a link to the Organizing For Action page where a battle strategy was outlined.

The four key steps for fighting climate change included spreading the word, helping your community to switch to clean energy, hosting a house party - and a call for further twitter action:

"Check out our list of known climate deniers in Congress-elected officials who refuse to even acknowledge the science behind climate change-and call them out on Twitter," it instructs.

Tweets were hashtagged with #ScienceSaysSo.

While Obama could probably have anticipated the responses of the climate deniers, on this occasion he faced criticism from a slightly more unusual quarter: the Lady Gaga fandom.

The outburst coincided with the release of Lady Gaga's new single, Applause. With almost 40 million followers, her online popularity surpasses that of Obama, and many were torn between supporting the national climate change agenda and listening to the singer's latest offering.